Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi ( ; born Ali Mohamed al Fakheri, 1963 - 10 May 2009) was a Libyan paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda. After being captured and interrogated by the American and Egyptian forces, the information he gave under torture was cited by the George W. Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.Bush's War. Directed by Michael Kirk. Frontline. March 25, 2008 Training camp director Al-Libi led the Al Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, the facility where Zacarias Moussaoui and Ahmed Ressam trained. An associate of Abu Zubaydah, al-Libi was one of those whose assets were frozen by order of the September 26, 2002 list of terrorists released by the U.S. government following the September 11th attacks. He was captured by Pakistani officials in November 2001, as he attempted to flee Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban precipitating the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.Risen, James. "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration", 2006 United States Department of Defense spokesmen used to routinely described the Khaldan training camp as an "al Qaeda training camp", and used to routinely describe Al-Libi and Abu Zubaydah as senior members of Al Qaeda. However, during their testimony at their Combatant Status Review Tribunals, several Guantanamo captives, including Abu Zubaydah, described the Khaldan camp as being run by a rival jihadist organization – one that did not support attacking civilians. Cooperation with the FBI Al-Libi was turned over to the FBI and held at Bagram Air Base. When talking to FBI interrogators Russell Fincher and Marty Mahon, he seemed "genuinely friendly" and spoke chiefly in English, calling for a translator only when necessary. He seemed to bond closely with Fincher, a devout Christian, and the two prayed together and discussed religion at length. Al-Libi also told the interrogators details about Richard Reid, and he agreed to continue cooperating if the United States would allow his wife and her family to emigrate, as he was prosecuted within the American legal system himself. In CIA custody The CIA approached George W. Bush for permission to take al-Libi into their own custody and rendition him to a foreign country for more "tough guy" questioning, and were granted permission. They "simply came and took al-Libi away from the FBI", and one CIA officer was heard telling their new prisoner that "You know where you are going. Before you get there, I am going to find your mother and fuck her". In the second week of January 2002, he was flown to the [[USS Bataan (LHD-5)|USS Bataan]] in the northern Arabian Sea, the ship which was being used to hold eight other notable prisoners, including John Walker Lindh. He was subsequently handed over to Egyptian interrogators. Information provided According to the Washington Post, }} On September 15, 2002, Time published an article that detailed the CIA interrogations of Omar al-Faruq. In the article it states "On Sept. 9, according to a secret CIA summary of the interview, al-Faruq confessed that he was, in fact, al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. Then came an even more shocking confession: according to the CIA document, al-Faruq said two senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had ordered him to 'plan large-scale attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, (the) Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia.'" Al-Libi has been identified as the primary source of faulty prewar intelligence regarding chemical weapons training between Iraq and al Qaeda that was used by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. Specifically, he told interrogators that Iraq provided training to al-Qaeda in the area of weapons of mass destruction. In Cincinnati in October 2002, Bush informed the public: "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases." This claim was repeated several times in the run-up to the war, including in then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N Security Council on February 5, 2003, which concluded with a long recitation of the information provided by al-Libi. Powell's speech came less than a month after a then-classified CIA report concluding that the information provided by al-Libi was unreliable and about a year after a Defense Intelligence Agency report concluded the same thing. Al-Libi recanted these claims in January 2004 after U.S. interrogators presented to him "new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims", according to Newsweek. The DIA concluded in February 2002 that al-Libi deliberately misled interrogators. Some speculate that his reason for giving disinformation was in order to draw the U.S. into an attack on Iraq, which al Qaeda believes will lead to a global jihad. Others suggest that al-Libi gave false information because of the use of excessively harsh interrogation methods. An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a Defense Intelligence Agency report, declassified upon request by Senator Carl Levin, that expressed doubts about the results of al-Libi's interrogation in February 2002. The declassified paragraphs are: }} The January 2003 CIA paper Iraqi Support for Terrorism states that al-Libi told a foreign intelligence service that "Iraq — acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif's emissary — agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000. The two individuals departed for Iraq but did not return, so al-Libi was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." The September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism stated that al-Libi said Iraq had "provided" chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates in 2000, but also stated that al-Libi "did not know the results of the training." The 2006 Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq stated that "Although DIA coordinated on CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism paper, DIA analysis preceding that assessment was more skeptical of the al-Libi reporting." In July 2002, DIA assessed "It is plausible al-Qa'ida attempted to obtain CB assistance from Iraq and Ibn al-Shaykh is sufficiently senior to have access to such sensitive information. However, Ibn al-Shaykh's information lacks details concerning the individual Iraqis involved, the specific CB materials associated with the assistance and the location where the alleged training occurred. The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience." The Senate report also states "According to al-Libi, after his decision to fabricate information for debriefers, he 'lied about being a member of al-Qa'ida. Although he considered himself close to, but not a member of, al-Qa'ida, he knew enough about the senior members, organization and operations to claim to be a member.'" Senate Reports on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq On September 8, 2006, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released "Phase II" of its report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Conclusion 3 of the report states the following: }} On June 11, 2008 Newsweek published an account of material from a "A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002". The article reported that on August 7, 2002 CIA analysts had drafted a high-level report that expressed serious doubts about the information flowing from al-Libi's interrogation. The information that al-Libi acknowledged being a member al-Qaeda' executive committee was not supported by information from other sources. According to al-Libi, in Egypt he was locked in a tiny box less than 20 inches high and held for 17 hours and after being let out he was thrown to the floor and punched for 15 minutes. According to CIA operational cables, only then did he tell his "fabricated" story about Al Qaeda members being dispatched to Iraq. Book: Inside the Jihad In November 2006, a Moroccan using the pseudonym Omar Nasiri, having infiltrated al-Qaeda in the 1990s, authored the book, Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story. In the book, Nasiri claims that al-Libi deliberately planted information to encourage the U.S. to invade Iraq. In an interview with BBC2's Newsnight, Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim country, according to Nasiri. Nasiri suggested to Newsnight that al-Libi wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. In the book, Nasiri describes al-Libi as one of the leaders at the Afghan camp, and characterizes him as "brilliant in every way." Nasiri explains that learning how to withstand interrogations and supply false information once captured was a key part of the training in the camps. Nasiri claims that al-Libi "knew what his interrogators wanted, and he was happy to give it to them. He wanted to see Saddam toppled even more than the Americans did." Book: At the Center of the Storm In April 2007 former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released his memoir titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. With regard to al-Libi, Tenet writes the following: }} Repatriation to Libya and death In 2006 the Bush Administration announced that it was "transferring high-value Al Qaeda detainees from CIA secret prisons so they could be put on trial by military commissions." But the Administration was "conspicuously silent" about al-Libi. Noman Benotman, a former Mujahideen who knew Libi, told Newsweek that during a recent trip to Tripoli, he met with a senior Libyan government official who confirmed to him that Libi had been quietly returned to Libya and was still in prison there, but suffering from tuberculosis. The English language edition of the Libyan newspaper Ennahar reported on May 10, 2009, that Al Libi had been repatriated to Libyan custody in 2006, and had recently committed suicide by hanging. It attributed the information to another newspaper, Oea. Ennahar reported Al-Libi's real name was Ali Mohamed Al-Fakheri. It stated he was 46 years old, and had been allowed visits with international human rights workers from Human Rights Watch. Al-Libi had been visited in April 2009 by a team from Human Rights Watch, who were reportedly "stunned" to discover al-Libi in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison during their fact-finding mission to Libya. The sudden death of al-Libi so soon after the visit by the HRW team has lead human rights organisations and Islamic groups to question whether al-Libi's death was in fact a suicide. Clive Stafford Smith, Legal Director of the UK branch of the human rights group Reprieve, said "We are told that al-Libi committed suicide in his Libyan prison. If this is true it would be because of his torture and abuse. If false, it may reflect a desire to silence one of the greatest embarrassments to the Bush administration." Hafed Al-Ghwell, a Libya expert and director of communications at the Dubai campus of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, commented "This is a regime with a long history of killing people in jail and then claiming it was suicide. My guess is Libya has seen the winds of change in America and wanted to bury this man before international organisations start demanding access to him." Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director, said that al-Libi's death means that "the world will never hear his account of the brutal torture he experienced. So now it is up to Libya and the United States to reveal the full story of what they know, including its impact on al-Libi's mental health." On June 19, 2009, Andy Worthington published new information on al-Libi's death. Worthington reported that former Guantanamo captive, United Kingdom resident, and fellow citizen of Libya Omar Deghayes was his link to a source within Libya who had spoken with al-Libi prior to his death. Based on his Libyan source, Worthington was able to offer a more detailed timeline of Al Libi's last years. The head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch stated al-Libi was "Exhibit A" in hearings on the relationship between pre-Iraq War false intelligence and torture. Confirmation of al-Libi's location came two weeks prior to his death. An independent investigation of his death has been requested by Human Rights Watch.Peter Finn Detainee Who Gave False Iraq Data Dies In Prison in Libya The Washington Post (May 12, 2009) On October 4, 2009 the Reuters reported that Ayman Al Zawahiri had asserted that Libya had tortured Al Libi to death. See also *Black sites *Ghost detainee *Extraordinary rendition References External links and references * * * * Letter from DIA declassifying two paragraphs of DITSUM # 044-02, October 26, 2005 * * * * Kurt Nimmo. http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=168 CIA Patsy Spins Fairy Tale Plot to Assassinate Bush, Another Day in the Empire, December 23, 2005. * Category:2009 deaths Category:Libyan al-Qaeda members Category:People subject to extraordinary rendition by the United States Category:Libyan torture victims Category:Libyan people imprisoned abroad Category:Libyan extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Category:Prisoners who died in Libyan detention Category:Libyan people who died in prison custody Category:1963 births fr:Ali Mohamed Al-Fakheri pl:Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi